Keeping the Balance
by abstraction
Summary: Derek Hale is the resident exorcist and demonology expert of Los Angeles. He has a mouthy apprentice called Stiles. Someone is killing the people of West L.A. and apparently it's their job to find out what's going on. Essentially, the Constantine movie with more werewolves and brooding and long-suffering apprentices who just want an ice cream.


"Can we, maybe, talk about how you threw a demon onto my car, Derek? The car that I just had fixed? Derek? Are you hearing me? No, don't answer that, I know you can hear me," says the voice coming from under the hood. The Jeep has seen better days. Arguably, it's seen some worse ones, too.

They're in a cramped alley in one of the less-great suburbs of Los Angeles, and it's just past noon so the heat feels like a physical being crushing down on them. Sweat prickles on the back of Derek's neck and mixes with a bright smear of blood. He can feel the skin knitting slowly back together, and he tugs at his collar. It itches.

There's a clang and a screeching groan as a hand pulls the hood down and tries to keep it shut despite the crumpled metal. "How about next time, you maybe warn me about throwing demons onto my car. Can we do that next time, Derek? Or are you going to pretend you're not listening and just shrug at me?"

Derek, who is now looking down and toeing at the smoking remains of the demon smeared like ash across the pavement, shrugs non-noncommittally with one shoulder. There's a frustrated huff behind him, followed by the creak of a car door swinging open.

"So can we leave now? Or are you going to brood some more? Maybe you can just stand there and melt to death in the goddamn heat and I can go get myself an ice cream. Does that sound like a good plan to you, Derek?"

"_Shut up_, Stiles," Derek says after a moment. But Stiles is in the car, the engine screeching to life and his fingers fiddling with the air conditioning.

"Not getting any younger here, Derek!" he calls out, punching an air vent. Derek looks skyward for strength, grits his teeth and says nothing.

He climbs into the other side of the Jeep and they drive, turning a corner and leaving the alley empty. There is nothing to show they were there save for a flaking darkness that will be gone once a breeze blows through.

.

.

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As it turns out, Stiles wasn't actually kidding about the ice cream. He pulls into the parking lot of a small diner near the apartment and hops out of the Jeep, not waiting for Derek. He's frustrated, and hot, and his car is going to need repairs _again_, and the fucking exorcism they'd just performed left something straining inside of him, making his spine taut and vibrating like a violin string. He hasn't been this keyed up since they last visited Derek's half-breed angel friend. So, you know what? If Derek didn't want the sweet creamy goodness available inside after such an exhausting experience, he could just go home.

Stiles pauses mid-step when he recognizes he probably could have phrased that better in his head.

He swings the car keys around his fingers in a practiced arc, then throws them into the air, catches them without looking. He pockets them and is nearly at the diner's entrance when he nods his head back to see if Derek is following him or not. He is– slowly.

Which is why, when Stiles is pulling the tinted glass door of the diner open and Derek is still a few feet behind him, clearly contemplating _deserting_ Stiles, he says under his breath, "I will _buy you_ an ice cream, Derek, and we can discuss that whole… weirdness."

Stiles knows damn well Derek can hear him so he continues holding the door open, looking more and more to Derek as if his nerves are flickering with electricity, his long fingers tapping rapidly against the glass. Derek almost wants to slow his pace to further Stiles' visible agitation but the heat is blooming under his skin like a desert flower, so instead he closes the distance between them and brushes past Stiles into a droning blast of air-conditioning.

"Thanks for holding the door open for me, Stiles," Stiles mutters, following Derek to the podium where he's staring down the _Please Wait to be Seated!_ sign. "You're a real friend for getting me an _ice cream_ on your broke-ass _budget_, Stiles," he hisses good-naturedly at Derek's back when the hostess grabs menus and nods for them to pick their seats.

They slide onto stools at the diner's long bar, Stiles swinging his legs around with the smooth pivoting seat and tapping his foot against the chair leg. He raps his fingers against the bar in a mindless staccato, staring as the water in their mason jars ripples from the movement. There is a long mirror behind the bar and Derek uses it to watch Stiles' mouth pull downward, the rest of him bristling with restless energy.

"So," Stiles begins, turning toward him. Derek shakes his head _no_ minutely. He understands why when a waitress appears in front of them. There is a homey, beautiful quality to her face that Stiles finds himself liking. She has a short brown braid tucked behind her ear and her name tag is crooked. _Amy_, Stiles reads.

"What can I get for you fellas? Anything to drink besides the water, or are you ready to order?"

Stiles hasn't given the laminated menus much consideration, but he's been here once or twice and sort of figures that an ice cream sundae is an ice cream sundae no matter what you do to it.

"Sundae," he says. "Put everything you can on it. Do it up. The works."

"Sure thing! And for you?"

"Nothing," says Derek.

"Dude, it's hot as actual hell outside. At least get a frickin' iced tea or something."

Derek looks like he wants to roll his eyes. "Coffee," he says to Amy the Waitress. "Don't call me dude," he says to Stiles, who sighs.

"That'll be right out," she says. She grabs the menus and walks away.

Once Derek has his coffee– and seriously? Out of all the things on the menu and he goes for the burnt diner coffee? The _hot_ burnt diner coffee? –and Stiles has an enormous spoon of sundae in his mouth, he raises his eyebrows at Derek.

And Derek– Derek realizes, suddenly, where Stiles' agitation is bubbling from. This is too much like what Stiles has seen already, too much like the way his mother–

"So what was that," Stiles says around his spoon, voice low, "with that demon–"

"Half-breed," Derek corrects.

"With that _half-breed_ knowing who I was? That's like... that was pretty weird, right?"

To be fair, Stiles _knows_ it's weird. Yeah, he hasn't been allowed to help Derek with the tricky exorcisms yet– _yet_ being the operative word here –but he knows that the only half-breeds who care enough about hunters know Hale's name... but him? Stiles? Derek had only just thrown the thing out the window, where it had crashed onto the Jeep– denting the shit out of the hood he might add –when it had spotted him behind the wheel. Stiles had scrambled out, Bible at the ready when Derek had leaped from the third floor of the apartment complex fire escape, landing in a graceful, predatory crouch.

"If it isn't little Stiles," it had said, voice like crunching glass, sharp and bloody and uncomfortable in his ears. "We'll be seeing you soon," it hissed, and then Derek had thrown the thing to the pavement and smashed a crucifix against its rotting cheek, finishing his Latin bit cool as a goddamn cucumber.

So, yeah. Probably not great that a demon– _half-breed_, his inner Derek corrected –knew who he was. Probably less great that it had imparted a cryptic message and then laughed, high and loud, as its face melted off like burning plastic.

The only demon half-breed that had known his name was before, when–

"Weird, yes, but not unheard of," Derek says, interrupting his train of thought. He sips his coffee and Stiles thinks it's probably a testament to Derek's many years keeping the balance that he doesn't wince at the taste. Stiles has been here before. He knows how bad this coffee is.

"So uh, that whole last words thing. On a scale of one to apocalypse, where does that fall, exactly? Should we be worried?" Stiles digs deep into his sundae dish to get the walnuts that have sunk down between the melting scoops, twisting the spoon to get the perfect amount of chocolate syrup.

"I would say it's probably not good," Derek supplies.

"_Probably not good_," Stiles parrots, licking syrup from the spoon handle in a completely obscene manner. "Wow. Glad we know what we're dealing with here."

A sudden, sharp prickling sensation bursts between Stiles' shoulder blades like rotten fruit. He leaves the spoon dangling from his mouth as he tries to scratch at it. The metal warms on the seat of his tongue and the taste is sweetly metallic, but he can't quite reach the itch. He just rolls his shoulders, trying to ignore it, and when he looks up Derek is meeting his eyes in the mirror's scuffed reflection. He quickly pulls the spoon from between his lips and it makes a slick, hollow sound.

"What?"

"I'm thinking, Stiles," Derek says, but he sounds tired. He stares into the oily depths of his coffee like it will suddenly become drinkable.

He hasn't been looking in top shape recently which, okay, Stiles is supposed to notice this stuff right? It's like his job.

And now that Derek is lost inside of himself, Stiles starts to really notice things and in particular– the blood, Stiles sees, the blood on the collar edges of Derek's white button-down have started to become brown and muddy. Derek's generally shaven, but the past few days he's let stubble grow dark across his face, matching the shadows beginning to bruise under his clear, saltwater-green eyes. Stiles feels suddenly like he's missed something; like there has been some second life bubbling under Derek's that is draining him. He's only known Derek for a year and a half, but Stiles is observant; curious. He pokes and prods all the things that shouldn't be poked or prodded and watches what happens so he can know for next time. And for the time after that.

(It's important to figure out if you can heat holy water to steam and have it still work on half-breeds, _okay_, Derek? _Jeez_.)

So he takes in these small changes of Derek's– the dark eyelashes against pale skin normally flooded with pink, the unwashed hair that lies mussed and sticking to his forehead from sweat, the small downturns in the corners of his mouth, the slight hollow in his cheek where he bites the inside carefully with his teeth in thought–and tucks them carefully away in his head.

Stiles uses his fingers to pop one of the maraschino cherries between his lips, pulls the stem with a _snick_ he hears through his jawbone; it's tart and fake-syrup sweet and he crushes the flavor between his teeth and thinks. Maybe Stiles doesn't really have room to be angry right now because while yes, demons suck, especially when they're thrown on the hood of your beloved Jeep and _know your name_, Derek must have everything so much worse. It's not a contest, he knows that, but _fuck._ He makes sure his next spoonful of sundae is eighty percent whipped cream. The airy sweet of it bursts on his tongue, gives him something to concentrate on. He can feel Derek's eyes on him through the mirror and tries to shake the cloak of anger that's been hooked around his neck since this morning.

Just one of those days.

His teeth feel gritty with sugar so he drains his water, tries to imagine it washing away frustration on top of his thirst. He needs to get over himself– put on his big boy pants. Be what Derek needs.

Oh, yeah. And apparently deal with Hell knowing who he is. Whatever that means.

"To clarify: when you say probably not good, that's–"

"Yeah," says Derek. "You're fucked."

"Oh, great. Awesome. Thanks for sugarcoating that for me."

Stiles finishes off his ice cream in two more bites, licks the spoon clean and half-contemplates licking the dish before tamping down on the instinct.

He raises a hand toward Amy the Waitress instead and says, "Check, please."

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.

.

Stiles spends the ride back to Derek's apartment wondering why the half-breed's words got to him so thoroughly. Well, besides the obvious thing where a literal _minion of Hell_ thought he was important enough to remember. There was just something about the way it looked at him through the glass of the windshield before Stiles' adrenaline kicked into full gear and propelled him from his seat. Something deep inside Stiles shifted, like it _knew_–

"It's Wednesday," Derek says as Stiles pulls up to the bowling alley. He shifts into park and kills the engine.

"And?" Stiles asks.

"Isaac," says Derek, and that's all the invitation Stiles needs. He never gets to sit in when Isaac comes over. He's never actually _met_ Isaac, only seen him in passing.

"_Yes_," Stiles says with fervor, pumping his fist. Derek is already out of the Jeep and heading up.

The apartment is right above a relatively unpopular bowling alley, which apparently suits Derek just fine. It takes up the entire third floor, a loft-like industrial space with almost no doors separating the rooms and light flooding in from a long row of windows that spans the entire west-facing wall. The kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom are all in a neat row spanning this same length of the apartment, constantly lit by the windows' yellow-white light suffusing the space like smoke. The rest of the apartment is exposed brick, worn wood, and fairly Spartan furniture. The only room with a real door is the bathroom, which is small and full of off-white tile. The entire living room is just _books_ and Stiles could probably spend his whole life in there. Or like, seventy percent of his life.

Okay, probably a flat eighty.

Whatever.

Stiles is settling into one of the dining room chairs–of which there are _six_ and he's never actually seen more than three people in the apartment at any give time so what in the holy _hell_ does Derek need _six dining room chairs_ for– when he hears the front door open without even a cursory knock. Derek, who is leaning against one of the long windows with the bright afternoon sun flooding behind him so he's solid shadow, doesn't even nod to let Stiles know that this is normal behavior. A moment later Isaac, curls freshly disheveled across his forehead and a small purple-red burst in his full bottom lip, walks in and heaves a stiff leather briefcase that might have been fashionable sixty years ago onto the dining table.

Isaac is only a year or two older than Stiles, but probably the only person who really knows his story is Derek; and even Stiles thinks Derek may not know everything. People in this line of work tend to keep their pasts to themselves. Regardless, he's their resident– technically more nomadic, actually –Guy with the Goods.

"Hale," he says warmly, all sunshine. He's opening the bag without preamble, eyes downcast. "I've got some great stuff for you. That guy that I told you about? With the thing? He really came through."

"Good. Good, Isaac. Lay it out for me."

Isaac must only now notice Stiles, because when he looks up, his eyes flick between him and Derek, questioning. Derek gives him some kind of telepathic go-ahead because Isaac relaxes minutely, and pulls out a small matchbox from his bag of wonders.

"You'll love this one. Screech beetle from Amityville," he says. Derek huffs what might be a laugh and pushes himself from the window, crowding into Isaac's space like a moth to take it from his outstretched hand. Stiles bristles.

"Yeah, laugh now, but that's like nails on a chalkboard to the fallen," Isaac says. Derek gives it a shake and a loud, scrabbling hiss fills the room.

"It's nice to have around when you need to scramble up a demon, I'll tell you that much," he continues.

"How is that possible? It's just a bug," says Stiles.

Isaac turns to Stiles and looks– Isaac looks downright offended. "It isn't 'just a bug'," he says, with full-on finger quotes and demeaning stare. Whoa, sass quota has now been filled for today. Stiles is about to ask _yeah but what does that mean_, when Derek places the matchbox carefully on the table and says, "What is it with you and insects, Isaac? You still like 'em?"

"What's not to like about them?" Isaac looks like he wants to fidget but has crammed his fingers into the dry leather creases of his briefcase.

"My point exactly," says Derek. Diplomatic as ever, the fucker. Stiles suppresses the urge to roll his eyes.

Isaac's grin is large and light in response, and it's hard for Stiles not to want to mirror it.

What Isaac grabs next from the bag is long, metal, and cylindrical, and when he hands it to Derek, Derek actually laughs. Stiles is wondering about that when Derek says, "You _can't_ tell me that this is what I think it is."

"I can if you're thinking that it's Dragon's Breath," says Isaac.

Derek extends his arm fully, aiming the object like a wand, and glances at Stiles.

"You might want to shield your eyes, Stiles," he murmurs. Before Stiles can ask what _that_ means, Derek releases a catch on its body and fire rushes from the tip in a blooming inferno, and the sound is like a giant's sigh, static-filled and crackling at the edges. It rages for a full three seconds before Derek closes it, brings his arm back to side, impressed.

"_Whoa_," Stiles says, full of awe. His fingers are pressure-white from gripping the edge of the dining table in surprise. "Isaac where do you _get_ this stuff?"

"I have my ways," he fucking _preens_.

"I didn't think you could even get this anymore," Derek says, spinning the silver rod between his hands.

"It's just a little more strictly controlled, if you catch my drift."

"Yes," Derek says at the same time Stiles says, "_No_."

They ignore Stiles. _Typical_.

"And some of the essentials, of course," Isaac says, dipping his hand into the bag. "Holy water from the River Jordan," he says, pulling out glass globes of water and placing them on the table. "Pure gold bullets," he produces a sleek black case, "Holy rosaries, thirteenth-century bestiary from Scotland, and bullet shavings from the assassination attempt on the pope."

Stiles gets up and walks to the other end of the table where Isaac has laid out all the items. Derek's still holding the Dragon's Breath and watching as Stiles picks up one of the rosaries. The beads are cool and smooth between his fingers, heavy with glass weight.

"This is some seriously cool shit, dude. Oh, and I guess since we haven't been _formally introduced_," says Stiles, cutting a look at Derek which he hopes portrays his thoughts on this _very clearly_, "I'm Stiles."

"Yeah, I know." Isaac takes Stiles' free offered hand, and his grip is warm and solid. Steady. "Derek mentioned. Nice to formally meet you too."

Stiles grabs the nearest chair and sits, rolls his shoulders. Isaac looks to Derek while snapping the bag closed deftly with his fingers. "If there isn't anything else?"

Derek looks strangely uncomfortable, too large for his own skin, but he sets down the silver rod and says, "Do you have any–"

"Right!" says Isaac. He opens his jacket and fishes out a small vial, pressing it into Derek's hand. "Northwest region of France."

"Thanks," Derek says, and it's so sincere Stiles isn't sure what to make of it.

Isaac just nods and takes his leave.

"Oh and Derek," Isaac says, halfway out the front door. "Erica'd like a word. There's a case she thinks you might be able to help out on."

He shuts the door before Derek can do anything but part his lips with an unsaid reply. Figures.

"Erica, huh?" Stiles says. "Haven't seen her in a while."

Derek swiftly undoes his slightly-singed tie with one hand and throws it on the back of a chair. "Then let's see what she's doing that's so important she has to send _Isaac_ as her messenger instead of dropping by herself."

It takes Stiles a full second after the front door shuts behind Derek to realize that he should be going _with_ him– he's basically Derek's goddamn chauffeur –and he jumps up from the chair, his foot knocking it over with a crack as he stumbles toward the door. He takes a panicked second to motion uselessly at the fallen chair before letting an _Ahhhhhh fuck it_ into the air, patting down his jeans for keys and, satisfied of their weight in his front pocket, slips out of the apartment.

.

.

.

They find Erica at a crime scene– a pool in a building with a broken glass skylight ceiling, the Angels Mercy Hospital looming above it. The air is thick with the slick-sweet smell of chlorine, and everything feels damp and humid. There's only one or two cops inside with them, and a plain-clothes man Stiles is assuming is a detective. They are very pointedly not looking in Erica's direction. It makes Stiles feel a very strange kind of invisible. Even outside, where there was a line of LAPD cruisers and one of those wooden fence-like barriers with POLICE stamped helpfully on the side, Derek only had to look one of the uniformed cops in the eyes before the guy nodded and turned the other way, letting him and Stiles in without pause. It was kind of awesome.

"Stiles!" Erica calls, though to Stiles it's more of a throaty purr. He can feel it like a hum under his skin. She's in her professional garb: prim collared blouse, cropped blazer, clinging jeans and very high heels, all in matte black. She looks dark and rich like a plume of oil-smoke when standing in such contrast to the flat white of everything else in the pool house.

"Hey, Erica," Stiles tries to say, but because Stiles' life is not a romantic comedy, it comes out as more of an awkward hacking cough as his body has suddenly decided to _choke on air_. God, his _life_. Erica sidles up to him with ease all the same, pats him hard on the back with the flat of her palm. Her hand stops just between his shoulders and she tenses, presses hard and searching with her fingers for a moment before she laughs sweet like a bell, and knocks him lightly in the back of the head.

"How is that any way to greet a lady, Stiles? A cough to the face? I'm shocked. Shocked and appalled."

"Sorry," he says, waving his hands as if he can somehow erase the moment from history. "Sorry, something in the throat, I guess."

"Must be," she says with a slow smile.

"Erica," says Derek. His shoulders seem stiff and Erica flashes him a smile that's summer-fresh and knowing.

"Hale," she says, oozing her patented false warmth. "My very favorite undead asshole. I'll show you what's going on. Follow me."

"I'm not _undead_, Erica," he grits.

She clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth as they walk.

"You're going to have to explain that one to me, Erica," Stiles says as they near the opposite edge of the pool. "I know he gets a little hairy to deal with about once a month or so–" Derek growls at this but Stiles pushes on, "but so far I haven't really seen a whole lot of death happening to this guy. Besides, you know, the whole 'killing things' he does on occasion."

A deputy to the far left shoots them a look.

"Things that _deserve it_," Stiles says a little louder.

Erica laughs. She pushes a thick mass of brass-blonde curls over her shoulder and turns to Derek.

"Should I, Derek?"

"_Erica_," he says, and it sounds a lot like _NO_.

"Now you _really_ have to tell me," says Stiles, but all of a sudden they're standing over a dead body and Stiles doesn't really feel like carrying the conversation any further.

There's something quiet about being this close to death, a quiet that seems to suck all the air from the room until the only thing you can hear is the push-pull of your lungs and a ringing in your ears. The body– the _victim_, his mind supplies, and he knows he has to do this, his dad has talked about this before, about humanizing the dead and not losing sight of that –is a man. He's young, late twenties maybe, and Stiles really wants to concentrate on the details but all he can see is how the guy is staring into nothing. He's empty. There's nothing inside him and he's just _there_, he's just staring up at the broken ceiling like something will save him. His skin isn't white and Stiles isn't sure why he expected it to be, because it's mottled and wax-looking and his pupils are the tiniest bit clouded and _God_, he thinks with a slow burn in the back of his head, _this guy is dead. He is really dead. He was alive and now he's just _dead, _and no one will know what he was thinking when it came for him or that he has no one to take care of his plants–the orchids, they'll die too– or his star-white cat, and the writing backed in light–_

"Stiles!"

Derek is holding him. Stiles can feel the warmth of Derek's hands pressing down on his shoulders.

Wait, why is Derek holding him?

"Yo," Stiles says. His voice sounds strange and hollow in his ears.

From the corner of his eye he can see that Erica is crouched next to– Erica is doing her psychic thing, getting details about whatever happened. Derek is really intensely staring Stiles in the face, and he looks pretty angry.

"What the _hell_ was that, Stiles?"

"What?"

"Stiles, I'm serious. What the hell just happened to you?" Derek's eyes are wide, and they look strange and dangerous but it takes a second to figure out why; his irises are shining molten-metal red. Stiles pulls himself from Derek's grasp and laughs to dispel the weird current buzzing through him.

"Whoa, take it easy Wolfman. I wasn't even doing anything, I was just looking at– I was looking for clues. You know, Sherlock Holmes-ing it. Observe and deduce. What did it look like I was doing?"

Derek's taken a step back and runs his hand hard across his face as if Stiles is the bane of his existence. Which– okay, fair. They kind of have personalities that were made to crash and burn. Derek's all stoic and no-nonsense and... generally just a badass. Stiles is... not that. He's more of an approachable sarcasm guy.

But he's working on the badass part.

"You were catatonic there for a second, Stilinski," Erica says, tone edging on amused. She stands and watches him curiously. "Anything you want to tell us about that?"

"Are you sure you just haven't been around me when I'm not talking? It's not the end of the world if I don't narrate my whole _life_, you know."

"No," says Derek, _clearly_ not seeing the out that Stiles has just provided for them. "This was different. Your heart was beating almost double. I could hear your thr–"

"Wow, okay. First of all: creepy. Second of all: _creepy_, man! My heart rate is my own business!"

"Then why did it sound like it was going to burst from your chest?"

"Melodramatic, dude. Really melodramatic. And I don't know, I just– it was harder. Than I thought. I haven't seen a– I haven't. You know, since my mom–"

Stiles trails off. Erica is still looking at him, head tilted with curls falling over her shoulders. Her lips are a bright, rose red, so when she bites the full bottom lip of her mouth with her white, white teeth, it looks carnal. Like some kind of vicious that Stiles can't really fit into words.

"Oh," Derek says. Erica's eyes seem to shine in the way that always makes Stiles feel like she can see through him, see down to his nerves curling themselves around muscle and bone like vine.

"Um," Stiles starts, but is saved by a uniformed cop coming over.

"You got what you need? Morgue's waiting on this one," the man says. He's only looking to Erica, but his shoulders are tense, his fingers resting all-too-casually on his holster. Interesting.

"Oh I sure do, sunshine," she says, clapping a hand on the man's shoulder. He startles at the contact and tries to pull away but is stopped by Erica's tightening grip. She leans in with her red, red lips and whispers like rushing blood into his ear, "Don't think she doesn't know about it. You're not as good at hiding it as you think, hotshot." She licks her teeth and grins, feral, letting the man go. He stumbles the smallest amount as he walks away, as if his knees have suddenly failed him, or gravity shifted to make his bones heavier, harder to move.

"Erica, you said you weren't going to do that anymore."

"You know I have a thing about _scoundrels_, Derek."

"Oh, dude, don't say scoundrel. It's too rugged and Han Solo-esque. Just say 'asshole.' Really does the trick," Stiles says.

"Darling," Erica says, suddenly in his space and pushing her fingers through Stiles' hair. Her nails scratch down his scalp until her hand rests at the back of his neck.

"Don't call me _dude_," she hisses with an accompanying sharp slap to the back of his head.

"Ow! Always the head! Don't you care about head trauma? What if I get concussed? Jesus, woman!"

"You'll live," she snipes.

Stiles turns to Derek for backup but he's apparently had enough of them and has already walked half the length of the long pool.

"Derek! Man, come on!" Stiles skips over a cone marker and hurries to Derek's side, matching his pace. Then they're out in the late afternoon, the heat piercing through the cloying chemical smell of the chlorine, the sheer vibrancy and yellow-bright of the sun breaking through the strangled feelings curled up in Stiles' stomach. It feels, now, like they'd never been inside, feels like the sun and the heat and the sharp cry of a nearby bird has washed the moment away, a high-heat mirage. Erica appears on the other side of Derek, a wave of orange blossom following her.

"We gonna talk about this or what?" she says.

"Let's go," says Derek.

As they leave, Erica lying loose-limbed in the back of the Jeep, she spots the same cop she scared to death in the pool house at a squad car, speaking to his partner. She manages to catch his eye and shouts, "Toodles!" blowing him a kiss as Stiles guns it.

.

.

.

They end up at the same diner, pressed into a small window-adjacent booth. The garish florescent lighting reflects against the double-glass of the window, making it look like rows and rows of these flat rectangles of light carry themselves into an infinite distance, bright against a thinning evening. The air outside seems muted and pink with the coming dusk. Stiles and Derek are sitting across from Erica, and Stiles can feel the wave of heat generated by Derek's body like a summer storm from being so close beside him. His entire left side feels warm and comfortable. Erica's lips are curled like a flower around the straw of her milkshake, eyes alight.

"Any reason," she says after taking a sip and licking her lips, "we had to do this at a diner? Your place isn't too far from here, right?"

"Hungry," Stiles says, pressing his own lips to his thumb to suck off diamond grains of seasoning. It bursts at the tip of his tongue, salty. They aren't the best curly fries he's ever had but after seeing–

"I'm a stress eater," Stiles shrugs.

"And I want to know why this is something we should even care about," Derek says. He didn't order anything from the acne-ridden teenager whose eyes seemed drawn to Erica's mouth. He'd just glared until the kid got nervous and excused himself.

Erica sighs, shifts in her seat. "What did you pick up while we were there?"

"Not much," Derek admits. "The chlorine was hard to get around. Everything was untouched besides the skylight, and the body. It felt– I don't know how to put it. Justified?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Erica drawls. She leans forward, pushes the thick parfait glass of her milkshake aside with her fingers. Her nails are the same vibrant red as her mouth. "But the first thing you should know: this was the second victim."

"Wait, so are we treading from 'coincidence' territory into 'serial killer' territory? Because that's not so much _demons_ as it is just some freakin' psychopath."

Erica flips her hair over her shoulder in a strangely calculated, casual gesture. "I wanted you on this because it's not just some _psychopath_. It's more than that. I was only led in this direction in the first place because this latest victim? He was my _client_. His wife died of a stab wound in an alley. Police ruled it a mugging, but what I picked up... I don't know. It was _angry_, and it was happy to watch her bleed out. There were no defensive wounds; I mean, there was nothing _at all_ to show that there was a struggle of any kind."

"Wow. I guess he really _doesn't_ have anyone to take care of his plants," Stiles murmurs.

Erica's gaze on him is sudden and sharp; cutting. Stiles imagines it's the kind of look that could draw blood.

"What?" he says.

Her eyes just narrow, and even Derek feels tense beside him. Right.

"Okay so, kind of weird, I'll admit," he says, to cut through the strained atmosphere settling over them. "Someone's first instinct isn't to just let themselves be stabbed. But this sort of looks like a run-of-the-mill human thing. Half-breed influence, sure, but more than that? Not really."

"Stiles," Erica says, voice low. She still seems to be searching for something in his face. "When I say this isn't human, you fucking _listen_."

"Okay, okay! Fine, you're totally right. You officially win the much-sought-after _I Am Always Right Award._ Congratulations."

"Erica, what makes you think this is something more than human?"

"_Because_, Derek, I said so. Just trust me on this. Have I ever steered you wrong before?"

Derek's eyebrows raise like a goddamn flag. Stiles knows that look and shoves fries in his mouth, his tongue feeling raw from the salt.

"Well," Derek says, but Erica interrupts him with, "Don't answer that."

Stiles chews slowly.

"I'm just saying, I need your help on this. These deaths, they're pulsing with something. And _Jesus_, the anger surrounding them, the total fury– it's like nothing I've ever felt before."

"Are you thinking this isn't half-breed work? Because a full-fledged demon on our plane... that's not how it works, Erica."

"I get that, I do, but it's... _wrong_, somehow."

"Yeah, it's killed two people already. That sounds pretty wrong to me," Stiles says, mouth still full.

"No, that's not what I mean, it's–" Erica makes a strange symbol with her fingers, and then shakes out her hands. "It's just–"

"Not human?"

"Yeah," she says.

Stiles gulps. His throat feels scratchy from salt and the crisp edges of the fries. His fingers are greasy, flecked with pepper, and he wipes them on a paper napkin, sighing.

"Great."

.

.

.

The sun has guttered out by the time they leave the diner, and Erica manages to hail a cab– "_Psychic_," she whispers to Stiles before sliding into the backseat –with a promise to be in touch with them soon. Normally Stiles isn't one to get upset at being thrown into a goddamn supernatural crime novel (he kind of gave up on that a long time ago), but there's something too open-ended about these murders that leave him unsettled. He feels adrift, or at sea, or lost, or some other fucking fog-filled metaphor that he can't equate this feeling with.

He guesses detectives, real detectives whose _job_ it is to catch murderers– and Jesus Christ what do they think they're _doing_ helping Erica with this, their whole life is exorcisms and demonology, not _murders_, this is something his Dad does back home, not _him_– well, they must feel this way at the start. Having the first proverbial ringing note of a melody fading fast into static.

A death, and then nothing.

Derek's at his side, sun incarnate, staring after the red glow of the cab's tail lights, already merged into the effervescence of the evening, long past where Stiles can even see.

"This will be fun," says Stiles, off-handed, into the summer dark. He's not sure where Derek is, in all this, doesn't know if he even believes Erica about the demonic nature of the attacks. He's been relatively tight-lipped, and that's saying something. They stand there at the edge of the parking lot, staring at the traffic with its _rush-rush-rush_ sound in their ears like ocean waves. It's a comfortable silence, and Stiles' head goes blank, the day bleeding from his bones, his mind only abuzz with the lights of cars and the hum of traffic and the moment feels endless.

"Come on," Derek says, and then the moment ends.

As they head to the Jeep, sharing the delicate quiet, a lamppost at the far edge of the parking lot blinks out. There's only a smattering of cars, and it's not dark enough that the light is strictly necessary, but Stiles stills breathes, "Bummer."

Another light blinks out, and suddenly Derek's hand is on Stiles' chest, stopping him from walking any further.

"Derek, what're you–"

"Stiles, stop talking."

Street lights begin to pop and go dark from further down the street. Stiles watches as each one dies out, the wave of power outs coming closer to where they are. _Pop, pop, pop_, they go, and with them goes the light. This isn't looking good.

There's only two lights left in the parking lot besides the warm glow of the diner itself, but even that seems to be dimming.

"Stiles," Derek says, very very serious.

"Still here," he says.

"_Run_."

Stiles runs. He can see the Jeep, solitary under the single dimming light left in the vicinity and there's a different rush of noise now, and it sounds almost like– like _wings_. Oh, fucking _great_. He watches as the light above his Jeep slowly goes full dark as he runs, and it is of course at this crucial moment when he's _so close_ to being able to reach his familiar blue friend and jump in that something rough and leathery brushes against the top of his head and he trips.

He flies forward, trying to brace his fall in the pitch black, and he hears Derek curse from somewhere, the words indistinct. Stiles' hands slide hard against the asphalt, and he feels the fall in his joints, jarring the pressure points of his elbows, his knees. His hands feel hot, sunburnt. Wet. It smells a little like pennies.

Something claws– oh my God something is _clawing at his neck_ –and Stiles feels more than hears a harsh cry escape him.

There is what Stiles can only describe as a _roar_, and he doesn't know if it's the legion of whatever the hell is attacking him, or if it's Derek, or if maybe that's just the sound you hear when you're about to die, but then something is pressing into his side, warm. Familiar.

And then Stiles goes blind.

Or, rather, it's more like the sun has appeared for a brilliant, white-blinding moment, and the rush and the cries and the snick of talons are met with a sudden, overwhelming _shhhh_ of sound, what Stiles imagines an angel's sigh must sound like. Heavenly static.

Stiles rolls onto his back, props himself up on his elbows and feels the grit of road and dirt in his skin. Derek is standing above him, his back to Stiles but his right foot pressing at Stiles' side, with white flaming fabric slipping through the fingers of his left hand. Ash is drifting slowly the ground. Derek lets the fire die out from the square of fabric after it, too, drifts to the ground. He crushes the last flickering of it like a cigarette butt beneath his shoe.

Light has returned to the world, and to the diner, and the evening is once again a thinning blue, the hum of traffic steady and reassuring beyond the parking lot. The diner is a tiny beacon of florescent white.

"You have to show me how you did that," Stiles croaks.

"Demons stay in hell," Derek says to himself. "Sure they do."

He turns, stares down at Stiles. His face is carefully neutral. "You okay?"

"Dandy," Stiles says. He tries to heave himself up, but Derek bends down to meet him halfway, grabbing his upper arms and pulling him up, steadying him once he's on his feet.

"Thanks," Stiles says. He can see ash hanging in his eyelashes, a dark blur on the edge of his vision. He wants to rub it out, but hisses when his fists close reflexively.

"Show me," says Derek.

Stiles carefully opens his hands, palms up, to Derek. They're a little shredded; there are deep, jagged grooves in his skin with tiny pebbles sticking to the pink underneath, blood welling up in tiny pinpricks. Stiles breathes in hard, pulls all the air he can into his lungs, but it's sour, and it feels rotten in the corners of his mouth. His throat feels wrong, his stomach uneasy. Saliva wells up in his mouth at the acrid smell of the air, thick and inescapable.

Derek seems to understand what's happening and turns Stiles away just as Stiles' stomach upends and his curly fries end up blood-orange and wet on the asphalt. Derek's hand is warm on his back, and Stiles coughs a little, gags a few more times at his stomach's behest. All he can taste is vomit and the same rotten-egg smell of the air. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, straightening from where he'd bent over.

"Sorry, I don't know–"

"It's okay. Happens to everyone their first time. It's the sulfur."

"Oh." Stiles' throat feels raw. If he's honest, _most_ of Stiles feels pretty raw right now.

"Let's get you bandaged up."

"Sure," Stiles agrees, as if Derek has asked him out for ice cream. "And then you can show me the trick with the light."

Derek doesn't say anything, just swings himself into the driver's seat of the Jeep.


End file.
